


Sunshine

by Sourwolf_sterek32



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Badass Reader, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Insecurities, Sorry Not Sorry, Sweet Daryl, just a small one-shot based off a past injury I've had and wanted to make it into a fic, plus size reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21521896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sourwolf_sterek32/pseuds/Sourwolf_sterek32
Summary: Based off the prompts:"Oh, I don't- I don't think that's suppose to look like that." & "Don't look at me like that"
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character(s), Daryl Dixon/Reader, Daryl Dixon/You
Comments: 7
Kudos: 93





	Sunshine

"Think we'll find anything?" You called out over the rumble of Daryl's motorcycle while you sat on the back with your arms wrapped around his midsection.

"Doubt it." Daryl muttered over his shoulder before he focused back on the rode causing you rolled your eyes.

"C'mon be optimistic. I have a good feeling about this supply run." You responded leaning forward and pressing a gentle kiss to the side of his head.

Daryl slowed the motorcycle down, pulling over onto the side of the road and turning the engine off. The town you were scavenging was about a mile down the road, so you figured you'd walk the last part and enter the town silently.

"Why ya always so damn happy?" Daryl asked, looking over his shoulder with a hint of a smile forming on his lips as he watched you climb off the motorcycle.

"It's a beautiful day. We're still breathing. Our family back at the prison are still breathing. Why shouldn't I be happy?" You questioned, turning around as Daryl kicked the stand down and dismounted the bike too.

"Don't ever change,sunshine." He muttered holding his arm out towards you and you chuckled as you let him pull you into a hug, his hands resting over the curves of your hips as he kissed the top of your head.

"You're such a softie." You teased causing Daryl to snort as he pulled away.

"Ain't soft. C'mon." He muttered, grabbing his crossbow from the mount on the front of his bike before the two of you began walking the rest of the way to the town.

You and Daryl had been together since the horrible winter after the farm got overrun and had practically been inseparable since.

You were a bigger girl, especially compared to your two sisters Maggie and Beth. You weren't like those two and you grew up always being compared to them and you hated it, but as you got older you learnt to ignore those kinds of people. Yes, you weren't supermodel thin or had a thigh gap or could fit into size 2 clothing, but you were strong and knew how to take care of yourself. That's what attracted Daryl to you.

You never took any of his bullshit when he first got to the farm and you were the only Greene member to actually help Rick's group look for Sophia. Things started off bumpy between you and Daryl at the farm, but once the farm fell and the winter kicked in, the two of you became close.

Otis had taught you how to hunt when you were a little girl, so it was always you and Daryl who went out hunting to try provide for the group. At first he was a bit reluctant to take you out into the woods, but he quickly discovered that you knew what you were doing and were damn good at it.

During those cold months, moving from house to house to stay alive, you and Daryl started to get close, literally. During those freezing nights everyone cuddled together during the night and somehow you and Daryl gravitated towards each other. Always sleeping beside each other, your shoulders or backs touching slightly.

On one particular freezing night, you had given your spare blanket to Beth. You were lying beside Daryl shivering when suddenly you felt his hand gently grab your shoulder and before you knew what was happening he began to pull you into his body. You quickly hugged him back, welcoming the warmth and touch as the two of you fell asleep in each other's arms.

After that, the two of you would always do it and it became a common occurrence. Over time the hugging and snuggling became more than just trying to keep warm and you and Daryl became a couple.

To this day, you still have no idea how someone like Daryl, someone so handsome, so strong, so kind, someone so out of your league, why would he want to be with you? Yes, you could hold your own and had no trouble protecting yourself or your family, thanks to the hunting and shooting skills Otis had taught you. But, there were so many better looking women in your group and literally all of them were skinnier than you and you couldn't figure out why Daryl had chosen you.

You never bought the topic up with him though. Mainly because you were afraid of what he was going to say or maybe that he hadn't even thought about it and by saying it, he might realise that you're right and you wouldn't be able to deal with that, so you never said anything.

Silently the two of you entered the small town and to your surprise there were only a couple walkers stumbling down the Main Street.

Daryl pointed towards the walkers, communicating silently and you knew exactly what he was saying as he raised his crossbow and you pulled out your duel daggers from your belt.

You took out the closest walkers, while Daryl shot at the ones further away and within seconds it was over.

"Pharmacy first then the bar to see if they have any concealed weapons in there?" You suggested, pulling your dagger out the last walker and looked over at Daryl as he reloaded his crossbow with a small nod.

You tucked your daggers back through your belt and began to follow Daryl towards the small pharmacy across the road.

He banged the butt of his crossbow against the front door and waited for a moment to make sure the coast was clear before he opened the door. You walked in first, drawing your daggers out as you scanned the area before giving Daryl a small nod as he followed.

Neither of you needed to speak to know what the other was thinking as you veered off to the left and Daryl went right. The two of you had gone on hundreds of supply runs and hunts since leaving the farm. Especially during those months before the prison. It was always the two of you going off to scavenge for the group, sometimes Glenn and Maggie would tag along, but you and Daryl worked better alone.

You knew how each other moved, how each other thought, how each other fought, and knew what the other was thinking without so much as a word. Rick and Maggie teased you about it all the time and at first the two of you got flustered by it, not liking the teasing and attention, but now you just took it in your stride.

"I told you I had a good feeling about this." You called out, your eyes scanning the shelves behind the counter, full of various painkillers and antibiotics.

Daryl pulled the backpack from his shoulders and threw it over the counter towards you. You caught it with ease and began filling the bag while Daryl looked around the rest of the store, trying to find anything else useful.

In the end, you had grabbed all the medicine from behind the counter. Daryl had filled the rest of the bag up with various bandages, band aids, stitches and cough medicine before the two of you made your way towards the bar across the road.

Although the pharmacy was a hit, the bar had been completely scavenged. Not even shitty bottles of passion pop were left behind.

"Still have a good feeling about this run?" Daryl teased, as the two of you stopped in the middle of the store.

You turned around to face him to find him already looking at you with a hint of a grin forming on his lips and you rolled your eyes.

"Actually, I do. There's gotta be something in here worth scavenging." You insisted causing Daryl to chuckle at your stubbornness.

He began to wander around front counter to try help find something before he spotted a pull up door on the wooden floor that clearly lead to come kind of cellar in the basement.

"Hey, I think there's some kind of basement-" Daryl began to say as you walked over to him, but he didn't get to finish his sentence before the floor suddenly cracked.

Your eyes widened, realising that with all the alcohol that had been split on the wooden floorboards, the wood was no doubt rotten.

"Daryl!" You yelled, quickly pushing him out the way before the floor gave way and the last thing you were aware of was your body falling through the floor before everything turned black.

-

The next few minutes went by in a blur and you weren't entirely sure you were even conscious as Daryl's voice snapped you out of your haze.

"Y/N! Hey, can you hear me? Y/N?" Daryl shouted and you forced your eyes open as you stared at the large hole in the roof in confusion.

It took you a few seconds to realise that was where the floor had gave way and you were lying on the ground in the basement. You could see Daryl crouched down looking through the hole and you sighed with relief realising that he hadn't fallen through.

"I'm fine." You called back, staring up at Daryl before you looked around the room realising that you were in some kind of cellar, but as you tried to move searing pain ripped through your shoulder.

"Fuck." You winced, looking down at your arm, but you couldn't see anything with your long sleeved flannel on, but by the ripping pain running from your shoulder down to your elbow, you knew something was wrong.

"What's wrong? Are ya hurt?" Daryl questioned, slight panic laced his tone as he stared down at you, but you knew he couldn't see you very well since the only source of light was coming through the hole in the roof.

"I-I don't know." You stuttered, forcing yourself into a sitting position as you stared down at your left arm before you managed to stand yourself up.

You were pretty sure your arm wasn't broken, but it really hurt and you had no idea what was wrong.

"I'm comin' down." Daryl responded and before you could even respond Daryl was jumping down through the hole and within seconds he was standing by your side.

"What's wrong?" He quickly questioned, his hands grabbing your shoulders, but the second he touched your left shoulder you winced, quickly pulling away and Daryl instantly let go.

"Something wrong with my arm." You groaned as you began to carefully pull your jacket off, which turned out to be hard with only one good arm and Daryl quickly realised what you were trying to do and helped you take the jacket off.

"Oh, I don't- I don't think that's supposed to look like that." You mumbled, staring down at your arm in confusion. You were wearing a tank top underneath the jacket and you could clearly see your shoulder, but something was definitely wrong and you were pretty sure your shoulder didn't look right.

"Nah, it ain't. Your shoulder is dislocated." Daryl informed and your eyes went wide with shock as you looked away from your shoulder towards Daryl who was standing in front of you worriedly, clearly unsure what to do next.

"That means it needs to be popped back in right? Needs to be set back in place?" You asked, but you didn't really want to know the answer to that and Daryl nodded.

"Do ya trust me?" He asked softly as he gently grabbed your wrist of your bad arm, but didn't move your arm in the slightest as you nodded.

"I know how to pop 'em back in 'n it's gonna hurt like a bitch while I do it, but after that it will feel a lot better." Daryl explained and you nodded again, taking a deep breath.

"I trust you. Just get it over with." You answered, looking down at your shoulder before Daryl gently grabbed your chin with his free hand and lifted your head.

"Don't look at it, just look at me." Daryl instructed as you lifted your gaze and your eyes locked with his ocean blue ones and you nodded.

Daryl stared at you for a few seconds to make sure you were looking at him before he focused on your arm.

He gently straightened your left arm out while you kept your eyes on his face, tracing over every detail, every mole and every hair to try and distract yourself as Daryl began to lift your arm up while pushing it towards you gently.

Pain spiked through your shoulder as he moved it and you had to squeeze your eyes shut, biting your tongue to stop yourself from groaning. Suddenly, you felt the shoulder pop back into place and the pain immediately reduced drastically.

It was like instant relief and you sighed, opening your eyes to find Daryl now looking at you again with worried eyes.

"Ya alright?" He asked and you nodded and he sighed with relief. "It's still gonna hurt for a while 'n ya won't be able to move it much at least not for a couple of days." Daryl began to say as he picked up your flannel from the ground and began to tie up a makeshift sling for your arm until he had it set perfect with your arm cradled to your chest.

"How do you know how to do all of this?" You asked, once he finished with the sling.

"Fell off Merle's bike once 'n dislocated my shoulder. He had to pop it back in 'n did the same thing for me. It's not that hard, but I know how much it hurts." He answered, his eyes flashing over the makeshift sling and you nodded in agreement.

"How are we going to get out of here?" You asked, looking up at the hole in the roof before you glanced over at the staircase and realised that the top half of the stairs had snapped off. There was no way you'd be able to climb the remaining section with only one arm.

Daryl didn't answer your question as he walked over to the stairs and grabbed the railing and tried to shake it. The stairs didn't budge and he nodded to himself, satisfied that they were going to hold.

You watched as Daryl began to climb the stairs until he reached the top one and reached up towards the hole in the wall. He could easily reach it and grabbed the edge of the hole with both hands and pulled himself up.

You remained standing where you were and stared at him in disbelief. How the hell were you meant to do that?

"Just follow what I did." Daryl instructed as he dropped himself onto his stomach and leant over the edge of the hole as he pointed towards the broken staircase, but you shook your head.

There was no way you'd be able to pull yourself up like Daryl did, even if you didn't hurt your left arm.

"You'll be fine, just trust me." Daryl added, noticing your slight hesitation.

You stared at Daryl for a few seconds, contemplating what to do, but you knew there wasn't any other way. The longer you waited the longer Daryl was lying up there prone to any walkers drawn in from the crash.

"Okay." You answered, trying to make your voice sound confident as you took a deep breath, but you were anything but confident as you walked over to the stairs and began climbing up. Within seconds you reached the top of the stairs and grabbed the edge of the hole with your good arm, but there was no way in hell you'd be able to pull yourself up.

"Grab my hand, I got ya." Daryl reassured and you looked up at him as he sat himself up into a crouch and held his hand out towards you and you shook your head. That would not end well.

"No, I'm too heavy, I'll hurt you." You quickly responded, looking up at Daryl who frowned at what you just said before he shook his head.

"Ya ain't. Now, take my hand, I'll pull ya up." He insisted, but you didn't move as you kept your good hand holding onto the edge of the hole as you stared at Daryl who sighed, before he grabbed your hand from the edged and held it tightly.

"I got ya. Just trust me, girl." He said and before you even had a chance to respond, he began to pull you up and to your shock he actually did within a few seconds.

"Here, take these." Daryl suddenly said a moment later as he pulled out a packet of painkillers from the backpack and handed it to you.

You were still trying to process how Daryl actually pulled you up to begin with as you took the packet and popped a few of the tablets out before handing the packet back.

Your shoulder was thumping in pain, but no where near as bad as it had been when it was still dislocated and having it in the sling had helped, but you just felt useless.

If you came across a herd of walkers, you'd only have one good arm and although you were a good shot with your handgun, you would still be a liability for Daryl and you hated feeling helpless.

"C'mon. Gotta get ya back to the prison." Daryl said, snapping you out of your thoughts and you simply nodded, not really knowing what to say.

You had no idea how long it took for dislocations to heal and you hated just sitting around and not doing anything to help. You had proven yourself to the group many times now and you knew Rick and the others would want to just rest and let your shoulder heal, but you didn't want to be useless.

Neither of you spoke as you made your way out the bar, Daryl carrying the backpack of medical supplies over his back while he held his crossbow in his hands.

There were a few walkers stumbling down the street towards the bar, no doubt being drawn in from the crash, but Daryl easily took care of them with his crossbow while you stood back and watched helplessly.

"Usually I can't get ya to shut up, ya alright? Do want more painkillers?" Daryl asked worriedly as he walked back over to you after taking down the walkers. The two of you continuing to walk down the main street in the direction of his motorcycle.

"I'm fine... just don't like being useless." You mumbled, looking down at your feet as you walked.

"Ya ain't useless. Ya don't need both arms to shoot and you're the best shot outta all of us. Ya ain't useless, girl." Daryl insisted and you sighed, lifting your head to look at him.

You were about to argue with what he just said before your eyes widened when you saw a walker right behind him.

"Duck!" You quickly shouted, pulling out your handgun from the holster on your belt and Daryl didn't hesitate as he ducked out the way, trusting you blindly.

You raised your sights and squeezed the trigger, watching in relief as the bullet pierced straight through the walkers head as it dropped to the ground, dead for good.

Daryl glanced over his shoulder in confusion, wondering why he had to duck and what you just shot at before he spotted the walker lying on the ground right behind him. He chuckled in relief as he stood up and turned back towards you with an 'I told you so' expression.

"Don't look at me like that." You responded, holstering your handgun as Daryl raised his eyebrows at you, but he didn't need to say anything as the two of you continued walking down the road. But, you were starting to wish you never left his motorcycle so far out of town.

Neither of you spoke after that, but you didn't need to say anything. Daryl had been right, you did feel useless, but you could still shoot and in this world, that was all that mattered. As long as you could protect yourself and the ones you loved then who cared if you only had one good arm for the time being.

It took nearly 30 minutes before you reached motorcycle and you mounted the bike, taking your usual seat at the back like you had done a thousand times before, but Daryl didn't make a move to climb on the bike.

You looked up at him in confusion and you knew by the look on his face that he wanted to say something.

"What is it?" You asked, looking up at him as Daryl rubbed his face with his hands.

"Why'd ya say that shit before? 'Bout ya hurtin' me when I pulled ya up?" He questioned, a hint of annoyance in his tone as he stared at you with an unreadable expression.

"I know you're strong, but I'm not exactly the lightest person. You don't have pretend." You responded with a shrug.

It wasn't hard to notice that you were a bit more thicker than the other women in the group. Even in the apocalypse with limited food and resources, you were still a bigger woman, it was just who you were.

"Ain't pretending nothin'. Your perfect how ya are." He stated, looking at you up and down as you raised your eyebrow at him in disbelief.

"Bullshit. Have you seen the other women in our group? Maggie? Michonne? Sasha? They don't have an ounce of fat on them. They're skinny, they're pretty, they have a thigh gap, they've probably never had to worry about their weight or what other people thought about them... and then there's me. The exact opposite. Why are you even with me? You could have any of those other skinny women at the prison." You questioned, unable to stop the sadness in your tone.

You could feel tears starting to rise in your eyes, but you had no idea why you were even getting emotional about this. It wasn't new. You had always been the bigger girl, none of this was new, why were you getting so upset?

"Hey." Daryl said gently, walking over to you as he sat down on the motorcycle with his back against then handle bars so he was facing you as he took your good hand with his.

"I don't want anyone else, I have the most amazin' girl in the world. You're beautiful 'n you're a badass-" Daryl began to say, squeezing your hands gently, but you just chuckled, shaking your head in disbelief as you felt a silent tear trickle down your cheek.

"Don't laugh, I'm being serious. Ya pushed me out the way before the floor collapsed, ya saved me 'n got yourself hurt in the process. I hate that ya did that, but ya always protect the group, always look out for me. You're strong, you're brave, you're always happy 'n makin' the best outta every situation. I love ya 'n I love your curves, you're perfect how ya are." Daryl insisted, taking one hand off yours as he rested it over your hip and leant forward.

"You're delusional, Dixon." You responded quietly, your eyes locking with his as he shook his head and glanced down at your lips before he shuffled closer and pressed his lips to yours, kissing you gently.

"Nah, I ain't." He whispered against your lips as he pulled away slightly, resting his forehead against yours and softly brushed the stray tear from your cheek. "I love ya exactly how ya are, Sunshine."

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first ever plus size!reader fic, I hope you all liked it. 
> 
> Just a small disclaimer, I don't know a lot about dislocated shoulders and I purely based this entire thing on my own experience with dislocating my shoulder (I've done it twice playing netball) and it fucking sucks and I really wanted to make my experience at least useful for something, so I put it in a fic. 
> 
> Anyway, hopefully sometime this weekend I ill post the first chapter of my new Daryl x reader series, but until then stay safe everyone and have a great day xx


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